Faux Leather & Soot Technique

My next atc class is on a Faux Leather background. We'll be using masking tape to get the basic look and then acrylic paint over the top. Best to stick to only a couple of colours as any more than 3 will make a lovely mud colour! I've just finished the background samples so I thought I'd put them up without any images or anything else on them so you can see them in all their glory.

The colours used on this first one are Transparent Yellow Iron Oxide & then Raw Umber (I have used all Golden paints but you can use what you have).

Next colours are Yellow Ochre then Quinacridone Burnt Orange...

Finally, Cobalt Turquoise and Burnt Sienna and then I wiped some of the colour off with a baby wipe...

There were plenty of oooohs and aaaaahs at last Saturday's atc class on the Soot Technique. As promised, I changed things around and discovered a new way of adding colour. The normal method of doing soot technique is to take a piece of white gloss card stock, hold it by the edges and shiny side down, then move it backwards and forwards....actually I do side-to-side, in a candle flame. My hand motion is actually quite fast, don't do it too slowly as it'll catch on fire! It needs to be low enough in the flame so you see black smoke coming up, if there is no black smoke it's not in the flame enough but if you hold it too close to the wick, you'll end up with scrape marks across it. Might take a couple of practices to work out the correct distance to hold it. Clean your stamp off thoroughly with a baby wipe after each stamping.

Check it regularly to make sure you are not making it too black, you want a coating of soot so that it's between a light grey and a dark grey...not black! Once done, place it soot side up, taking care not to touch it unless you want to do a "forensics" one with your fingerprints on it. Then take a clean rubber stamp (no ink) and stamp...prepare to be amazed as when you lift your stamp you'll see a wonderful stamped image on it. You can do several stamps to tell a story if you like but you can't mask anything so think about your placement. When you've finished stamping, then you need to seal it with either a fixative or a sealer. I've heard people have used hairspray with success too. I have a matte sealer so that's what I use.

You can also then use your Stazon ink to do more stamping if you like, the soot is set so there's no worries about masking if you want to do this now.

The last time I taught soot last year I decided I wanted some colour on it so I used alcohol ink on the gloss card first and then sooted and continued in the same way.....can you say GORGEOUS!!! So now I've come up with something else to add colour but unfortunately I can't say what it is yet as it's up for possible publication....if I can be bothered getting off my butt to write & submit!

These are 2 of the latest soot ones with the new colouring. "Art"...

"Yearning"...